Data Driven Journalism in Spain with Pro Bono Público

Note: This article is a translation with a few add-ons of what I wrote in Spanish for my personal blog. You can see the original post in Spanish: "Data driven journalism en España de la mano de Por Bono Publico".

One of the most interesting things that happened to me in London during the condensed course of government transparency I attended in November, was the relationships I could strengthen. And not only with Open Data celebrities. One of these relations was with the people from Pro Bono Publico, the civil society association you may know for organizing the challenge Abre Datos. This contest was first held in Spain to promote the reuse of public sector information.

Since I met Jacobo Elosúa, David Cabo and Álvaro Ortiz at the Open Government Data Camp 2010 and we shared a good time discussing about the state of open data in Spain, I have followed a bit more closely their activities. For example, last week Pro Bono Publico released an excellent contribution to the spanish public consultation on the draft Royal Decree on the reuse of public sector information. Along with them, Fundación CTIC has also published comments and the Spanish Ministry of Industry has released an over 100 pages document with all 26 contributions received. Of course, one of those contributions is the one that Euroalert has published on its official blog.

Another initiative in which Pro Bono people are working on, and that I really think as very valuable, is the organization of a workshop on data driven journalism, aimed primarily at journalists and other information professionals. The conference is tentatively scheduled for February 15th 2011 and for the moment we are in the process of testing the real interest and gathering some feedback. I say we, because as a few weeks ago I spoke at the University of Valladolid to students of journalism about the challenges of open data, I'm trying to contribute what I learned from this experience. Of course, we ask for your comments and for your help to spread the event. As we get more details we will release them.

The words of Sir Tim Berners-Lee seem to have been an inspiration to all of us who were attending there:

"The responsibility [to analyze datasets] needs to be with the press"

... especially for Alvaro when Sir Tim took a sit beside him.

Lessons about Open Data at the Open Government Data Camp in London

Note: This article is a translation with a few add-ons of what I wrote in Spanish for my personal blog. You can see the original post in Spanish: "Grandes lecciones sobre open data en el Open Government Data Camp en menos de 24 horas".

After changing my agenda, last week I was finally able to attend the second day of the Open Government Data Camp held in London. In addition, invited by the Open Knowledge Foundation I was privileged to be present at the press conference which announced the release as raw data of the database containing all the UK Government expending over 25,000 pounds (about 29,000 Euros).

The event where the announcement of the release was made was presented and explained by Minister Francis Maude escorted by Professor Nigel Sadbolt, Tom Steinberg, Rufus Pollock ... and Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the web and advisor to the British Government. It is highly recommended to watch the video of David Cameron as a lesson on Open Government. This video was the opening of the event, so we must assume that the Prime Minister "wanted to be" there.

Despite being "only" an official announcement, there were a few things that caught my attention and I'd like to share, just in case we can be inspired in Spain, and perhaps in other countries:

• It was not a typical press conference, at least as we know them in Spain. I mean, it was not a long speech of the minister, followed by questions from reporters. Instead, it was organized as very short presentations about many important points around the matter of the announcement, both political and operational and even technological.
• There were presentations from all the organizations that had been involved in the project and not just from the government. Representatives from mySociety, the Transparency Board and the OKF, made their points. But there was also an important space reserved for independent software developers such as Chris Taggart, who had been working in a demo of the possibilities of the data released.
• The wide technological culture that exhibit the members of government, including the Prime Minister. Comparisons are odious, so I will not make any. This is an exercise for you.
  
• The commitment of UK Government to transparency and open data is remarkable. "We know this will be a very uncomfortable process within the government departments" said Maude. In fact, uncomfortable news began to circulate during the event, such us the payments to Nick Clegg's wife's law firm or the rents paid to Prince Charles from the Ministry of Justice. But the commitment is as firm as defined by the words of Francis Maude “It is our ambition to make the UK the most transparent and accountable Government in the world"

I noticed that in the UK the work done for years by activists of all kinds: journalists, associations, developers, companies and even civil servants and politicians has already achieved a great success: the message of openness and transparency is firmly installed at the highest political levels, of all signs. I think a good summary are these words said by Rufus Pollock, founder of OKF, half jokingly half seriously:

"It's very encouraging to see that UK government is becoming more radical than me in terms of open data and transparency"

Thanks to the OKFN for the great work organizing the Open Government Data Camp and in particular to Jonathan and Rufus himself for pursuing my attendance at the event. I hope that all the networking and interaction and the envy and inspiration that gives the speed at which things are developing there, allows us to COPY in Spain and create a true Open Data community. I believe we have the grounds, but we need a little more action, less complacency ... and some more reusable raw data.

About OGDCamp sessions, I'll write another post as this is becoming a bit heavier than I'd like to :) I recommend you check out the hashtags #openuk and #ogdcamp and conclusions of the working groups.

PS: On my way back to Valladolid, I read at the airport that the Government of Spain had released the draft Royal Decree implementing Law 37/2007 of 16 November, on reuse of public sector information and launched a public consultation on it. Personally I prefer the approach of less regulation and more publishing of open data as raw data, but still congratulations on the move. As soon as I can read it in detail I will try to make my contribution.

Quick guide to Opendata EC Public Consultation, the on-line survey on the PSI Directive

The Digital Agenda for Europe lists the revision of the Directive 2003/98/EC on the re-use of public sector information (PSI Directive) among its first key actions. It is worth reminding the key role of Spanish Presidency including PSI reuse in the Granada Declaration showing a commitment with promotion of open data that we all hope it will be followed with some action.

In September European Commission opened a public consultation with the purpose of gathering information from as many sources as possible on their views on the review of the PSI Directive. The consultation will feed into the debate on possible policy options that should be considered for the review, and will contribute to the impact assessment that will be carried out subsequently, associated with proposals for possible legislative or other measures.

As you all know a public consultation is a regulatory tool employed to seek the opinions of interested and affected groups in a certain matter. Gathering their views, opinions and contributions using the Internet both Member State administrations and EU institutions can understand the needs of citizens and enterprises better.

The PSI con­sul­ta­tion doc­u­ment is pub­lish­ed only in English but res­pon­ses are ac­cep­ta­ble in all EU lan­gu­a­ges, as it is not stated oth­er­wise on the con­sul­ta­tion do­cu­ments them­selves. So please do not think that being a non-english fluent speaker is a barrier to participate.

Werther you are a government, a public sector content holder, a commercial or non-commercial re-user or other interested parties your contribution is really important because your view will feed on the review of the PSI Directive.

The consultation includes questions divided on several blocks:

1. the PSI re-use context and possible action to consider,
2. substantive issues regulated by the PSI Directive,
3. practical measures,
4. changes that have taken place and barriers that still exist
   
5. other issues to comment regarding the review of the PSI Directive.

It will take you some time, perhaps over 30 minutes to make a good contribution, although it is stated that it is only 15 minutes to complete the survey. But is it worth the effort. You can answer online survey on the PSI Directive but I should recommend to have a look at the pdf version of the consultation document, in order to have a complete view, before answering.

It is also worth noting the commitment that the Commission Vice-President for the Digital Agenda, Neelie Kroes is showing with the open data community. As she pointed out, much of Europe's PSI is insufficiently or even sometimes not exploited, which means losing out a great opportunity to generate innovation.

The replies to this consultation will be published on the Commission's PSI web site. The consultation will run until 30 November 2010 and 3 weeks before closing, EC has gathered about 350 responses, which is not much, comparing with the importance of the matter. So please contribute with your views to build a more innovative Europe.

Moving to the Everest, looking for 3G service

It is a well-know problem that Internet service in Spain has poor quality and high prices, both in domestic and corporate segments. I've often complaint about the poor resources that many places in Spain offer for technology companies and innovation because I believe there is something wrong with it. For example, in Spain you can hardly get GPRS service (not to say 3G) when you walk a few miles away from big cities. That makes really difficult to stablish information workers in rural areas, even temporarily, for example during school holidays in summer.

And today I've read that a private telecommunications Nepali company, Ncell, has announced 3G services are available at the Mount Everest base-camp located at 5299 m. What the hell!

Although we must give big credit for such an accomplishment, as mighty as the altitude, the real thing is that climbers will be able to update blogs in Everest and I cannot work 20 Km away from the 37th most populated city in Spain during the summer. And I do not believe that is a good thing for a country that pretends to lead a shift in the grounds of its economy. Perhaps I should move to the Everest during the summer to have a quality internet service.

Are you ready to change the world?

I have been reading daily about Silicon Valley ecosystem for over a decade. Before the bubble burst, I used to read with envy success stories from garage entrepreneurs and Stanford graduates founding start-ups. I follow several blogs from well-known VCs, serial entrepreneurs, reputed developers and technology journalists from San Francisco area and the valley. In some sense I am more up-to-date with the Valley's life than with Spain's political affairs, although I've never put a foot in California, not even in the United States.

I am telling you this because yesterday I went to an event of Global Business Trip in Madrid that aims to be a facilitator for spanish technology companies in their way to the valley ecosystem. The project, hosted by Fundación Banesto Sociedad y Tecnología, and with the collaboration of ICEX, apparently is doing a great job trying to change spanish companies' endemic traditional lack of global ambition. I went to the event curious to know if at last there is an emergent ecosystem of real tech entrepreneurs in Spain, and I hadn't noticed. Unfortunately few minutes after my arrival I discovered that there isn't and that it will not happen some time soon.

On the bright side, and despite the naive way of thinking (and asking) of some entrepreneurs there, I got quite interesting takeaways. Specially from Carlos Barrabés (who really surprised me) and Bernardo Hernández, our most famous Googler and who seems really involved in contributing to Spain's technology internationalization

First of all, our country needs lots of new entrepreneurs if we want to really change the grounds of our economy. And we also need our companies to grow if we want to compare ourselves to other developed countries. Spain needs several thousand new medium-sized companies, and less micro-SMEs that are closer to self-employment than to a company. This change will take time and Government should take steps to empower people to go that way. In few words, we need more innovators, and most importantly ambitious innovators.

Secondly, there is not much innovation in spanish tech start-ups. Apparently, even Guy Kawasaki has recommended us to stop copying American ideas and to contribute with real innovation if we pretend to attract big investments.

And third, and very important to me, our lack of entrepreneurship culture starts in the schools and ends in Universities. That's the reason why there are more events than entrepreneurs :( In any case, I believe that events are necessary to accomplish a shift. We need at least a first generation of successful innovators that can become the investors of new and more ambitious projects. Just as Bernardo Hernández is doing. We are late, but an important part of Europe is also late. We can still make it.
I went to the event really relaxed, I barely networked, except in Twitter, but I brought with me a really important question for the stage of my beloved Euroalert and its mission of creating a pan-european platform for public procurement information services gathering opportunities amounting the value of 17% of EU GDP:.

"Are we ready to change the world?

I must find the answer very soon. And yes, this can be taken as an invitation to potential investors interested in the project.

Do not worry I am not planning to leave to San Francisco sometime soon. That ship already sailed for me... a decade ago. And sometimes I still regret that. But I have not resigned to making a remarkable contribution to the business I know about, although I am based in a territory with poor resources to boost innovation.

Openness vs Appleness in the smartphone space

Any reader will discover in a quick browse at this blog that we strongly promote "openness" in its many shapes. We think open source software will finally be adopted and promoted by governments and used by more users than proprietary one. We have talked so much about open standards as the right way to store and exchange data. We are involved with the open data community as it is the more needed space in the openness world, and we will announce very soon our plans to support open knowledge more actively.

Perhaps that is why I am frequently asked about the extraordinary success of Apple and its i[whatever] brands when competing against the rest of the world with its more than closed platform. It is really remarkable that markets think that Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) is the second most valuable company in the world (Apple overtook Microsoft in market capitalization in May 2010). And Steve Jobs is probably one of the biggest business genius in history and an incredible innovator as he has shown several times in his career.

But I think Apple will fail as it did in the 80s when they had the opportunity to dominate the personal computing market with its Macintosh. They decided to play the hardware and software game on their own and refused to collaborate. As a result Intel and Microsoft dominated an incredible growing and profitable market that somehow Apple invented. After a painful decline in 1997 Apple had to be rescued by Microsoft's money to remain independent.

In Apple's platforms third parties have no space and users hardly have any right further than paying every 2 years a lot money for a fancy new device. As far as "appleness" is trendy and apple-fan-boys go on spending 600€ a year in their i-devices, the big hype will work. Yes, hype is the word to define what Apple is living now. An incredibly big hype that openness will end up with. Android will emerge as the winner in the smartphone space simply because its business model and growth is sustainable and iphone's is not. As well as the iPad will enjoy a couple of years of lonely diving, as the prize for the big innovator. Of course Apple will make a lot of money waiting for competitors powered with open sourced platforms as they are doing with the iPhone, but in the end they will not dominate the market they have created.

What I usually say when I am asked for a recommendation, oversimplifying is, "iPhone is cool, but if you plan to use an smart-phone, buy an Android powered one". With Palm acquired by Hewlett Packard, Blackberry looking like a retro device although still in place, Microsoft out of the game and Nokia completely clueless, never an emerging market looked so clear to me.

The Web of Data is here to stay... and will be full of Public Sector Information

Yesterday I was speaking at the PSI Meeting 2010, that in my opinion was a great success for all the PSI community, which is a very important part of the open data movement. With an excellent organization by Spanish Proyecto Aporta and the European Commission's project ePSIPlaform, many people interested in the reuse of PSI around European Union, and even from Hong Kong, met in Madrid.

It was a very intense day, with 19 thoughtful speeches made by people coming from public administrations (including European Commission) and platforms, companies that reuse information and Trade Associations representing their interests and civil society organizations. I was specially impressed by the honest description of how some civil servants face the unlocking of their own data made by Catherine Lippert; the didactic description of open data picture and issues presented by Daniel Dietrich and the inspiration of the examples and replicas made by Chris Taggart.

But I am also worried about the strength that the business case trend is taking. Many voices, including the European Commission are asking to measure something that it is not possible to measure for the moment. I would say that if a company is willing to make an investment to develop a business model based on the reuse of a certain PSI, that should be enough proof of usefulness. If it doesn't work the only one who will lose is the company who is taking the risk. The information is being produced anyway and we should not ask the public bodies to over-engineer the formats or to build easy to use and expensive to exploit APIs. At least for the moment and at least during economic downturn. That can be part of the investments the companies can make. So please RAW DATA NOW!.

With these conditions, the business case will be built by itself in a few years for very little money. Because what we know for sure is what Marc de Vries said about the direct relation between access and reuse "No access, no reuse". And information industries need the raw material that represent raw data to innovate, specially as an stimulus for the recovery. It is not that difficult and I really think it is not that expensive. It is more a matter of will by the information holders.

There were many take-aways from all the presentations and round tables, so I recommend you to read the tweet stream of the PSI Meeting 2010, where you will find many of them. You will discover that many of the speakers are also twitterers and you can follow their activities on open data. And that in the public sector, even in Spain, there are many people like Alberto Ruiz de Zárate or Amalia Velasco that can make things happen.

For me the best part was to see that there is great group of brilliant people that are really committed to the objective of making Public Sector Information open and reusable for the benefit of citizens and businesses. And as usual in big causes, the best of them are volunteers. For the first time since I am following the open data community I really have the feeling that we are not very far from a big domino effect (as Catherine defined) that will make great things to happen... despite the business-casers.

Presenté mi libro en la misma tribuna en la que han estado Vinton Cerf y Bert Bos... Wow!

Ayer por la tarde presenté en Oviedo mi libro "Web 2.0: Una descripción muy sencilla de los cambios que estamos viviendo". Como os adelanté hace unas semanas, la Escuela de Informática de la Universidad de Oviedo, a través de su director Jose Emilio Labra, me brindó la posibilidad de celebrar el acto en el marco de uno de los Master en Ingeniería Web más prestigiosos de España. Como sabéis la región de Asturias, alrededor de la Oficina del W3C en España (albergada en Fundación CTIC) y la Universidad de Oviedo (y especialmente de la EUTIO) ha construido un polo de innovación en torno a las tecnologías para la web.

La tarde comenzó con una muy interesante charla con Chus Neira, periodista del periódico La Nueva España, que publicó esta entrevista en la que ha recogido muy bien la esencia de una conversación en la que tocamos con gran profundidad las luces y las sobras de la web (propiedad intelectual, nuevas generaciones, censura, privacidad, delincuencia, etc.) Cuando la persona que tienes enfrente sabe tanto o más que tú acerca del tema es fácil que la entrevista salga bien.

Para la presentación, contar con una audiencia tan especializa supuso un reto y un orgullo añadido ya que, para que os hagáis una idea, tuve que superar el miedo escénico de hablar en la misma sala en la que han realizado presentaciones Vinton Cerf, uno de los padres de Internet, o el creador del lenguaje CSS que sirve para dar aspecto a las páginas web Bert Bos

Como siempre, os dejo las transparencias con las que ilustré la presentación en la que hice un pequeño recorrido por las principales ideas que desarrollo en el libro:
Web 2.0 Una Descripcion Sencilla de los cambios que estamos viviendo

Al igual que todos los títulos de la colección Pocket Innova, el libro podéis adquirirlo online en la plataforma BibloWorld o por supuesto en Amazon. En su apuesta por hacer llegar sus contenidos a todas las plataformas y en todos los formatos, la editorial Netbiblo también lo comercializa como libro electrónico y lo podéis adquirir completo o por capítulos.

Después de la presentación y como aperitivo a la PSI Meeting 2010 de la semana que viene donde participaré en la mesa 2, realicé una ponencia sobre Open Data y sus modelos de negocio. Estaba dirigida principalmente a los alumnos del Master y por eso intenté acercarles la visión y el uso real que desde una empresa como Euroalert, se hace de tecnologías como Linked Data en las que ellos son especialistas. Os dejo la presentación, que además tiene ya alguna corrección que me aportó alguno de los asistentes (gracias a Carlos Tejo):
Euroalert Open Data Business Models

Tanto después de la presentación del libro como después de la ponencia sobre Open Data tuve un intercambio animado de opiniones con los asistentes, del que al menos yo aprendí muchas cosas. Hablamos del futuro del software libre, de los riesgos de la pérdida de privacidad o de la necesidad en educar mejor a los usuarios de la web.

En definitiva fue todo un lujo, en el que tengo que agradecer la implicación de la editorial Netbiblo y sobre todo de la la EUTIO por ofrecerme un marco tan agradable para presentar el libro. Y por supuesto muchas gracias a todos los asistentes!!!, entre los que además pude volver a encontrar a algún viejo amigo como Jose Manuel González Corral.

Presentación del libro “Web 2.0: Una descripción muy sencilla de los cambios que estamos viviendo”

Ya está disponible en Amazon el que es mi primer libro, y que lleva por título "Web 2.0: Una desripción muy sencilla de los cambios que estamos viviendo" y que se ha publicado dentro de la colección Pocket Innova de la editorial Netbiblo. Acostumbrado a escribir propuestas, proyectos, artículos para blogs, tweets, ponencias o cursos, la experiencia de comunicar a través de un libro ha sido todo un desafío. Personalmente ha resultado muy enriquecedor, sobre todo porque se trata de un tema que, como sabéis, me apasiona y que es no es otro que el invento más exitoso de la historia de la humanidad, la Web. Escribir este libro me ha permitido dedicar un poco de tiempo a reflexionar acerca del modo en el que están cambiando muchos aspectos de nuestras vidas. Ése es precisamente el objetivo para el que espero que sirva a los lectores: comprender mejor los cambios a los que nos está arrastrando vertiginosamente el increíble instrumento igualador que es la Web.

Aunque el título lleva el manido "2.0", he intentado recorrer los últimos 15 años de la Web buscando el origen de las transformaciones radicales que nos están obligando a repensar diversos conceptos que llevaban varios siglos bien afianzados en nuestra cultura. No me ha resultado nada fácil analizar con un poco de perspectiva acontecimientos que en el mejor de los casos han ocurrido hace unos pocos años o que incluso estaban ocurriendo mientras estaba documentando los capítulos pero espero que el esfuerzo haya valido la pena.

El formato de la colección Pocket Innova, para la que, como ya sabéis, además realizo coordinación editorial junto con Juan Vicente García, pretende acercar los temas relacionados con la innovación con sencillez y rigor, principalmente a directivos, académicos, estudiantes y técnicos de empresa. Me he permitido, por tanto, en algunas ocasiones licencias como intercambiar los términos software libre y software open source, para poder mantener un lenguaje claro y directo.

Además he tenido el honor de contar para el libro con un prólogo de Jose Emilio Labra, director de la EUITIO, y con quien ya tuve la oportunidad de escribir un capítulo que contribuimos conjuntamente para el libro "Web 2.0: The business model" (Springer).

La presentación del libro se realizará el próximo miércoles 2 de Junio a las 18:00h en el salón de Actos de la Escuela de Ingeniería Informática de la Universidad de Oviedo: C/ Valdés Salas, S/N y a la que por supuesto estáis invitados todos quienes tengáis disponibilidad para acercaros.

Acompañando a la presentación del libro realizaré la ponencia “Open Data: modelos de negocio de la reutilización de información del sector público”, principalmente dirigida a los alumnos del Master y Doctorado en Ingeniería Web de la Universidad de Oviedo, pero a la que también podrá asistir quien tenga interés en la incipiente Web de los Datos.

La ponencia tendrá algunos puntos en común con la que realizaré en Madrid el 9 de Junio con motivo de la PSI Meeting 2010 y cuyo título provisional es: ¿Los datos se liberan para fomentar modelos de negocio innovadores o ... son sólo para que juguemos con ellos sobre mapas online? RAW DATA NOW!!! Sin embargo tendrá un carácter mucho más formal como corresponde al foro que supone la Universidad de Oviedo y en ella repasaré los diferentes conceptos que intervienen en la apertura de información del sector público. Sobre todo a la forma de construir modelos de negocio innovadores y por tanto generar riqueza para nuestra maltrecha economía. Nos vemos en Oviedo.

Coordinando la colección Pocket Innova de la editorial Netbiblo

Desde hace unos meses, Open Economy, es decir, Juan Vicente García y yo (Jose L. Marin) estamos realizando la coordinación editorial de la colección Pocket Innova para Netbiblo.

Netiblo es una editorial científico-técnica independiente que desde 2001 apuesta por la innovación tanto en el contenido como en el formato y en la difusión, con la que, como sabéis, Juan Vicente ha publicado los títulos "Innovar en la era del conocimiento" y "Gestión de la innovación empresarial".


El objetivo de la serie POCKET INNOVA es acercar la disciplina de la innovación a directivos, académicos, estudiantes y técnicos de empresa interesados en conocer el qué y porqué de la innovación. Todos los títulos de la colección pretenden abordar, con cercanía y rigor, las distintas temáticas que componen la innovación y que se han estructurado en cinco áreas temáticas:

• Tecnología. Esta sección tiene como objetivo acercar a los lectores la información sobre las tecnologías emergentes, los últimos avances y las aplicaciones a nuevos productos y servicios.
• Financiación. Desde las subvenciones hasta el capital riesgo, los business angels, el VII Programa Marco de I+D y un largo etcétera, conforman los mecanismos de financiación de la I+D+i, los cuales serán abordados en la serie de una forma clara y práctica.
• Actores. Existen multitud de organismos y expertos que trabajan en materia de innovación en España, desde los organismos públicos hasta los privados, fundaciones, centros tecnológicos, expertos, redes... El quién es quién de la innovación en España y en Europa es el objetivo de esta sección.
• Gestión de la innovación. Sección central de la serie, la cual incluye metodologías prácticas que se pueden aplicar a la gestión de la innovación en las organizaciones. Desde la implantación de sistemas de I+D+i hasta la gestión de proyectos tecnológicos; desde la vigilancia tecnológica hasta la propiedad industrial y la transferencia tecnológica, todos ellos son temas cruciales para la puesta en marcha de organizaciones innovadoras.
• Capital humano y creatividad. Las personas son el elemento central de la innovación, su conocimiento, la creatividad, el trabajo en equipo, el liderazgo para la innovación y muchos otros temas componen una atractiva temática que todos aquellos que quieran adentrarse en el mundo de la innovación deben conocer.

La coordinación editorial de Pocket Innova es un proyecto que estamos abordando con mucha ilusión, ya que además de participar en estructurar y decidir los diferentes títulos, nos está permitiendo colaborar de forma muy cercana con autores que son referentes en sus diferentes disciplinas de conocimiento. Además de trabajar en Netbiblo con profesionales de la talla de Cristina Seco, Carlos Iglesias o Alejandro Álvarez.

En breve os contaremos más cosas acerca de los cuatro primeros títulos que están a punto de salir de imprenta y de sus autores, de los nuevos contenidos para los que estamos contactando autores y de las presentaciones de los diferentes libros. En definitiva de todo lo referente a nuestra actividad para contribuir a que los 52 libros que se publicarán entre 2010 y 2011 en la serie POCKET INNOVA sean un éxito y sobre todo ayuden a promover el conocimiento en todas las disciplinas relacionadas con la innovación. Por supuesto, si tenéis alguna sugerencia o propuesta que pueda encajar dentro de las características de la colección, no dudéis en contactar con Juan Vicente o conmigo en pocket.innova@openeconomy.net

Open Data Movement: Free our Data

It has been several months since I wanted to talk you about the Open Data Movement, specially after my participation in November in FICOD 09 representing Euroalert.net, in the roundtable about creating value through the reuse of public sector information.

During the past few months we have been living kind of an Open Data Rush that started with Obama's promise of government transparency, which in terms of data openness ended, among others, in Data.gov pioneering initiative. Since then several countries, mainly English speaking ones, have launched their own initiatives. You can check, New Zeeland Open Data Catalogue, or Australia Catalogue, and also individual cities like Open Toronto or New York City open data websites. There is a good repository of governments that are opening up their data vaults around the world at The Guardian Open Data Platform or at Fundacion CTIC website

In the European Union since 2003 we have the Directive 2003/98/EC on the Re-use of Public Sector Information (PSI) that has already been transposed into all the members national laws. That means, in simple words, that the EU27 Member States are enforced by law to promote open data, although to date only United Kingdom seems to be doing a significant effort. Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who is being advised by Sir Tim Berners Lee and Professor Nigel Shadbolt, has talked in several speeches about his aim of turning UK into a world leader in making government data more accessible to the public. This commitment to Open Data Community, considered as an important element of Building Britain’s Future, has led to Data.gov.uk website for the promotion of the reuse of UK public data or the announcement of the creation of "The Institute of Web Science" initially funded with £30M.

In Spain, we are quite far from leading anything in the web, although it is remarkable the effort done by Proyecto Aporta, a small initiative at the Ministry of Industry with very scarce resources, that I presented you a few months ago. For example, in March 2010 Proyecto Aporta launched a beta version of a catalogue of public information in Spain, which sadly contains very little raw data available, and thus, useful for reuse by companies or individuals.

There is not a strong political support from Spanish authorities, and Spain is going to loose another opportunity to improve its performance in digital innovation and to participate in the major changes in economy and society we are living. I cannot not understand why an initiative that would have such a huge positive impact on innovation it is not being pushed firmly in our country. Open Data is a very cheap investment for a Government and the main reasons that are pushing forward these initiatives around the world are purely economic. The European Commission estimated in 2006 that the overall market size for the reuse of Public Sector Information in the EU is 27.000 million Euros (0.25% of the total aggregated GDP for the EU)

In order to be up to date, I recommend the EPSIPlatform, Europe's One-Stop Shop on Public Sector Information (PSI) Re-use, where you will find, among other useful resources, the best tracking I know of all news, announcements and moves in the Open Data World. You can also follow EPSIplatform in Twitter. If you want to get involved I suggest you to follow The Open Knowledge Foundation (OKFN) projects around any kind of information that can be freely used, reused, and redistributed.

Open Data might be a drop in the ocean of economy, but it is a really cheap move, it is easy for public authorities, there are not major shortcomings, it does not hurt any industry and there is a lot of political return, apart from the economic as transparency is a hot topic for citizens. So please move on!. Companies need raw data for developing new and innovative products! Free our data!

In Dublin speaking about the web as a way to improve market intelligence in the Open Economy

Tomorrow I will be flying to Dublin, where I will be speaking at the "SMART CONSTRUCTION - DOING BUSINESS IN THE NETHERLANDS" seminar, organized by Enterprise Ireland, the Government's agency for the development and promotion of Irish business sector.

The seminar will take place at Enterprise Ireland HQ in Dublin, next Tuesday February 23rd 2010, from 08.45, where the registration starts, to 15:30, where the pre-booked one-to-one meetings are expected to end. This event is one of the activities organized for the Ireland Construct community, created with the objective to help Irish construction companies achieve strong positions in global market, and in this case will focus on the Dutch Construction industry.

I have been kindly invited by EI in my position of CEO at Gateway SCS which as you know owns the internet property Euroalert.net, a well know brand in Europe in the public procurement information services field.

I will be speaking around noon and I will share the morning panel with several experts in the Netherlands building environment sector:

• Bas van der Veen, Professor at Innovative Entrepreneurship in Construction at Saxion University who will present "The future of the Construction Industry in the Netherlands"
• Pieter van Boom, Managing Director at Bartels consulting engineers,who will speak about "Partnering opportunities – the realities in the Dutch market"
  
• Peter van de Boogaard, owner of NewCon Vastgoed bv, who will share "The expectations of a Dutch buyer in the Construction industry", and
  
• Martin Bourgonje, from Synergy Management, who will contribute with "Doing Business in the Netherlands – the small print"
  

I will try to contribute with Euroalert.net expertise in helping individual SMEs across the European Union, to compete with biggest companies, by providing more accurate, and fastest information on tenders in Europe or with market intelligence tools on public procurement opportunities like 10ders Observatory

In my presentation "Digging business leads out of the internet", I will mix the concepts of public procurement as an affordable way to export for SMEs, and the levelling factor of the web that brings more cost-effective tools to market intelligence on public procurement. The web is reshaping every aspect of our life and businesses have the opportunity to perform better in this Open Economy, by using improved tools to do old tasks. I hope Euroalert's modest contribution will help with useful tips in this at-the-gate-of-recovery scenery. Please, feel free to review and comment on the full presentation:
Digging business leads out of the internet

If you are in Dublin these days, please contact me, so perhaps we can share a pint of Guinness in the evening ;-)

Google to fix our mobile experience?

First they fixed search. (Don't you remember searching for document in the late 90s as a painful experience?) And as soon as they started to make good money out of selling ads they went public.

Then they put a lot of that money on developing (or buying) astonishing tools that improved our global internet experience (Gmail, Google Maps, Google News or Google Books) (Don't you remember managing your email with Hotmail as a nightmare?). And they are making every year huge money with and incredible financial perfomance.

They are still investing on building more of that tools. Some of them will be great and perhaps any of them will change our way of interacting with [... whatever...]. Surely they will go on making good money for a while.

All of that has been happening in the PC because, to be honest, we have been using our expensive smartphones (which many of us renew every year) to make phone calls (and lately photos). We have been spending 400€ on mobile devices to make [very expensive] phone calls. The ever connected Apple iPhone started to change the landscape and this week they are starting to sell their own device, the Nexus One, which uses their Android open source mobile operating system and is manufactured by HTC Corporation

As they have successfully done many times, they aim to boost a new era in user's experience while interacting with the internet, now through mobile devices. The simple three-word-motto is quite clear "web meets phone"

But this time there is remarkable difference: it is so weird to see Google selling hardware to consumers, and they are not used to this not-so-digital-business in which they have to deal with customers (real people). So I think there is a chance Google can fail, and that is news, isn't it? At least, sales started weak...

Be serious: The Internet it is not just about "their culture"

I was not keen to participate in the debate started a couple of weeks ago around Sustainability-Economy-Act-hidden-reforms affecting the internet in Spain. (Have a quick look at #manifiesto debate in Twitter, search Blogs, browse the group in Facebook, etc). But the Ministry of Culture went too far, trying to skip some basic rules that citizens expect from their governments in democracy (listening to all interested parties, explaining the real extension of the reforms, ...) They did not even communicate the existence of the amendment!!!! Thanks to the malicious way they are intending to change the law, the controversy even reached Boing Boing, and Slashdot, two very remarkable hits considering the insignificant relevance of our country in the internet.

Just in case you do not want to go further reading this post, I am not going to write about freedom of speech, nor about fundamental rights. Perhaps only a little bit about Intellectual Property, but in a broader sense than these interested-guys-of-the-culture try to define the concept (as if they were the only creators...) If you are expecting that, you should follow A-list bloggers like Escolar, Julio Alonso, Enrique Dans, and most of the other 150K "activists".

Of course it does not matter at all if Escolar, Dans and the others who were generously spending (or wasting) their precious time at the Ministry represent the internet community or not. Where was I when such a thing was founded? Fortunately they must be intelligent enough not to worry about that meaningless debate.

What everybody seems to be forgetting about is that we are wasting the energies that we need to build a real knowledge-based economy, founded on innovative, competitive and productive industries. Instead of that we are increasing the gap with truly non-bricked based economies, and trying to enforce the shift in our economy by law. What kind of future do we deserve?

What I have really missed in all the manifiesto mess is a strong voice coming from the Ministry of Industry saying something like: Please kids of the culture, leave the internet alone. We are not going to let you kill our weak internet-based-innovation in the name of your more than questionable interests.

Do they really think that people do not go to the cinema to watch over-subsidized-spanish movies because of P2P?. Juas!. As everybody knows since ever, The Internet is for porn, not for downloading their second-class products.

Music will not disappear in 5 years. It will be a stronger industry because innovators will figure out more ways of making money in the new and global economic scenario, powered by the internet. Of course business models based on the selling of overcharged dvds will disappear. But this kind of transformations happen in every other activity sector when a crisis overcomes or a disruptive change happens. And change and crisis have always happened and the only way to survive is innovation.

And yes, I am really upset. Please keep your hands off the internet!!!!!. You are going to kill our little opportunity to reach developed economies. Yes, Intellectual Property needs to be redefined, but this is not the way. All the creators should have something to say because it is not only a matter of culture. And surely IP must be transformed in something else, apart from giving a right to sue people or closing websites.

"Aprender internet" en un par de tardes

¿No hay algún ministro que pueda dedicar un par de tardes a explicar al presidente y al resto de sus colegas de qué va esto de internet?

Está claro que las dos tardes de economía de hace unos años no nos están llevando por el buen camino. Esta última ocurrencia de cambiar el modelo productivo por ley (de economía sostenible) , ya es bastante cómica en sí misma como para entrar a discutir unas u otras reformas.

Lo que no resulta tan cómico es que sin avisar, se incluyan medidas que afectan a los usuarios de Internet y que, sobre todo, nada tienen que ver con el objetivo de la Ley. Como mínimo está bastante feo y como mínimo es ciertamente cuestionable el espíritu democrático que demuestra un gobierno (socialista para más inri) que actúa así.

En España no tenemos futuro digital. Es mucho más fácil que intenten generar una nueva burbuja inmobiliaria que una economía basada en la innovación. A lo mejor así salimos antes de la crisis y además la gente corriente vuelve a ser feliz contando a los vecinos y familiares "cuánto ha subido su piso".

Al FICOD09 para hablar sobre Euroalert.net

Cuando el año pasado os comenté que mi interés por el FICOD 08 se debía fundamentalmente a mi trabajo en Euroalert.net, no podía imaginarme que sólo un año después iba a volver al FICOD 09, pero esta vez como ponente invitado a una mesa redonda sobre Open Government, precisamente para hablar de Euroalert.

En este último año Euroalert.net ha crecido para consolidarse como una autoridad en información sobre la UE y hoy cuenta con una amplia red de suscriptores a los que suministra contenidos en varios países. En muchos casos se trata de organizaciones de referencia que van desde la Agencia de Desarrollo del Gobierno de Yorkshire, la Cámara de Comercio e Industria de Londres o el Consejo Superior de Cámaras de Comercio de Rumanía que aprecian la propuesta de valor que ofrece Euroalert partir de contenidos de información públicos como son las oportunidades de financiación en la UE o las licitaciones públicas de todos los países de la Unión.

Probablemente por ello Red.es, como organizadora del FICOD y que conocía Euroalert a través del proyecto Aporta, ha considerado interesante que estuviese presente como ponente en la mesa redonda "O-gov: generando valor a través de la reutilización de la información del sector público", para contribuir con nuestra visión de las oportunidades que representa un mercado que sólo en la UE se estima entre 26 y 47 millones de euros.
La mesa redonda tendrá lugar el día 19 de noviembre a las 15.30 en la sala 2, estará moderada por David Cierco Jiménez de Parga, Director General para el Desarrollo de la Sociedad de la Información y voy a tener el provilegio de compartir mesa con:

• Juan Pelegrín - Unidad de Acceso a la Información de la Dirección General de la Sociedad de la Información de la Comisión Europea
  
• Carlos Alonso - Presidente de ASEDIE
• D. Chris Corbin - Analista Financiero en PSI Platform
• Carlos de la Fuente - Director del Área de Tecnología de Fundación CTIC y representante en el W3C advisory Comitee
  
• Jaime Gómez Obregón responsable de El Precio de la Gasolina
• Ángel Maldonado Elvira - Fundador de Legalsolo.com
  

El año pasado tuve la oportunidad de documentar el modelo de negocio de Euroalert en el capítulo "Doing Business by selling free services" del libro "Web 2.0: The Business model", junto con Jose Emilio Labra, y en el FICOD espero que la experiencia de Euroalert.net resulte una contribución interesante para el objetivo de la mesa redonda. Aunque seguro que no tendrá el glamour de la ponencia de Kevin Spacey.

En el blog de Euroalert tenéis más información sobre mi participación en el FICOD 2009. La inscripción puede realizarse online de forma gratuita y también está disponible el programa completo. Nos vemos el miércoles 19 en el FICOD 09.

Competing globaly with (poor) local resources

Companies use resources (inputs) to produce products and services (outputs) that they sell to other companies or individuals (market) with the aim of obtaining a profit. Some of the resources used as inputs by companies are called commodities because anyone can easily be supplied with them at the same price, quality, etc. Nothing new here (I am not getting a tenure for this).

Other resources can not be taken for granted, they are the base of the competitive advantage of the company. These are for example, resources you manage to be supplied with and that your competitors can not get in the same conditions as you could. Your customers like this, (your great services) and that is the reason why the market lets you survive. Nothing new here either (Definitely I am not getting a Nobel in Economics for this).

Theoretically, commodities do not make a difference for a company, even less in the digital economy but the point is that, sadly, the place where a company is based can be a big threat for its competitiveness. The Open Economy lets competitors interact regardless their location, but reality is that companies are not competing in the same conditions when we look at what they call commodities at their locations.

Lets look at a few examples in the digitally-developed-world like UK, Germany or USA, that are a big deal for companies in countries with a brick-based-economy like Spain:

• Bandwidth is the more obvious one. Cloud computing advances and its amazing possibilities are based on the assumption that Mbits are free (as in beer, not as in speech), or at least, too cheap to meter. Sadly IaaS services will not take off in countries like Spain where traditional datacenter services never reached competitive scales.
  
• Brilliant engineers are also near to be a commodity in some locations, but as there are not many Stanfords and Silicon Valleys, innovative people tend to migrate to that places. Again, the breach will be deeper for companies located in small or medium cities like Valladolid.
• Ubiquitous network access: if you go a few Km away from the city and it is not possible to get a decent Internet connection then Information Society will not speak Spanish for decades. Of course your possibilities for working in mobility are really short as you can not be out of the office. (disclaimer: this post has been written over a GPRS connection with a lot of pain.)
  

From my point of view some of these barriers could be easily mitigated with a good offering at the local airports. But if you have a look at the poor flight offering of an international airport like Valladolid with 3 or 4 flights (of course not daily) you will never consider that remote place to base your company if you plan to interact with customers, providers and staff in other parts of the world.

Most of these resources are not very complex (not even expensive) to develop at a regional level and the impact in the local digital economy is huge. Some regions are understanding this and in a few years their companies will be nearer to be competitive in the global digital scenery. Unfortunately the region where I live and my company is based will not.

Until Spanish governments, no matter national or regional, get a better understanding of the Open Economy, reality is that good engineers will migrate, innovative companies will look for a better place to base their headquarters and innovation and internationalization will be only the buzz words in speeches during the global crisis.

El Proyecto Aporta: transparencia y reutilización de la información del sector público

El proyecto Aporta es una de esas iniciativas de la administración pública que no salen en los grandes medios de comunicación. No abre telediarios ni tiene un hueco en las parrillas informativas de la gran actualidad del Ministerio de Industria como el programa de reparto de bombillas de bajo consumo o el plan de ayudas a la compra de motocicletas. De hecho apenas ha tenido repercusión en la blogosfera tecnológica...

Su objetivo es aparentemente simple, quizá incluso obvio: el proyecto Aporta nace con el objetivo de fomentar la reutilización de la información generada por el sector público por parte de empresas y ciudadanos. Sin embargo, promover la cultura de reutilización de la información en el ámbito de la Administración pública y concienciar de la importancia y el valor que tiene para el sector privado tener esta información a su disposición, es un objetivo que de gran impacto para la economía digital, para la Open Economy.

Entre otras actuaciones, el Proyecto Aporta ha editado la Guía Aporta sobre reutilización de la información del sector público. La guía es un documento práctico que recorre todos los aspectos a considerar por los responsables de la gestión de contenidos de los organismos públicos para la implementación de iniciativas de puesta a disposición de contenidos para su reutilización.

El proyecto, financiado por el Plan Avanza 2 y desarrollado por la SETSI a través de la entidad pública empresarial Red.es, finaliza en septiembre, con sus modestos objetivos iniciales ampliamente cumplidos aunque con mucho trabajo por delante si se desea apostar decididamente por la reutilización de la información del sector público.

Y eso es lo que parecía cuando se afirmaba entre los objetivos iniciales que se pretendía situarnos en la vanguardia europea en materia de reutilización de la información del sector público y contribuir a la recuperación económica de nuestro país. Sin embargo, dejando a un lado las muy comprometidas iniciativas como la de la Dirección General del Catastro, el INE o el Centro Nacional de Información Geográfica en España actualmente es prácticamente imposible obtener información del sector público en un formato en el que pueda ser reutilizado.

Esperemos que con la finalización del proyecto Aporta, sus objetivos no caigan de nuevo en el olvido y que se dote de presupuesto y continuidad a la iniciativa a través de nuevos proyectos, o quizá mediante la creación de una agencia especializada como la OPSI del Gobierno de Reino Unido, encargada de desarrollar todas las políticas de gestión de la información del sector público.

El instrumento es lo de menos, lo importante es que se impulse decididamente la exposición a los ciudadanos y a las empresas de la información del sector público a través de estándares abiertos que sean reutilizables y que nos permitan interoperar localizando, utilizando, compartiendo e incluso comercializando esta información. Toda la inversión que se realice tendrá un gran impacto sobre esa economía a la que se dice que hay que cambiar el modelo productivo y no sólo para el sector de los contenidos digitales o las empresas infomediarias.

Tanenbaun was right about the limits of bandwidth

It is a well known joke between the internet geeks that there is no faster and more reliable way of delivering data than storing on a external device at origin and then take the car and go to destination to load them. No ADSLs (2 or 2+), not even optical fibre to the home, just the biggest mass storage system you have and traditional transport.

When I first read that comparison was in a text book (written by Andrew S. Tanenbaun) titled "Computer Networks" (ISBN 0-13-066102-3) . I was a freshman engineering student and state-of-the-art modems where then 9600 bps in Spain. I think the Megabyte had not yet been invented and it was sort of a mythological concept. In those dark times (1993), it was indeed true and even exchanging floppy disks was faster than the internet but we all thought that it was just a matter of time.

Well, again I could not have been more mistaken. This joke, has recently become a business. Amazon launched (still in beta) a new service called AWS Import/Export which basically implements the delivering of big amounts of data onto or off the cloud bypassing the Internet. That is to say, using the postal system!!!

Amazon argues that for significant data sets, AWS Import/Export is faster than Internet transfer and more cost effective than upgrading connectivity. In my opinion Amazon's new service says a lot about the state of the network and about what can be expected from its improvement in the near future.

Sadly, Tanenbaun was right about bandwidth, and postal service has officially become a new network operator with this peering agreement with Amazon. :)